He had simply vanished. There was nothing else to tell.

Other kids had two parents. I had her. It worked. We had a bond between us that stretched and contracted like a rubber band. Best friends one minute, mother and daughter the next. Inevitably, she would cross her arms and huff and I’d roll my eyes, and the elastic between us would snap again.

As I grew older, though, it crossed my mind from time to time that perhaps she was lonely. My father’s absence was an unspoken void that lived within our walls, and although I longed for the day I, too, would fall in love, I was fearful. What if the person who would someday hold my heart disappeared too?

“Left you some hot water, honey!” my mother called.

Mom was turning off the shower and if I didn’t get my butt in gear I’d miss my ride and have to take the dreaded bus after all.

By the time I arrived at school, my head was pounding from stress. I stood staring at the inside of my locker for what seemed like an eternity, silently cursing Brynn’s “happy day” e-mail and the dark eyes of my dream.

“Hellooo? What’s with you? You’re practically catatonic,” Claire said in between bites of a cherry Twizzler.

“My head hurts,” I answered quietly and continued selecting the books I needed for the morning.

The noise level in the first floor hallway was beginning to cause a slight tunnel vision effect on me. I wondered if the nurse turned kids away before first period.

“Up late on the computer again? Trust me, Google has been known to cause serious neurological problems with kids our age. Unless…” In an instant Claire had that all-knowing gleam in her bright eyes. “Did you meet a guy on a chat? Do we know him?”

I slowly turned my head to face her. Claire Meyers and I have been inseparable since the third grade but the mechanics of her brain were still a mystery to me.